So here's the first cycle I did back in September. The main thing that I did differently with this and the other animation tests, as opposed to The Pancakes Cartoon and the comics I posted here in 2012, was that there would be thought behind the art. I wanted to actually learn something instead of stubbornly prodding along at a monotonous pace like I did with most of my work.
Being that this was a study, I wasn't concerned with what sort of context it would be in. I just plugged in a generic character onto the classic Preston Blair studies to see if I could understand solid drawing and most importantly: MOVEMENT. So for this first test, I copied a simple 10 drawing walk cycle. The silhouettes of the last five drawings mirror the first five only the arms and legs are in the opposite spots. The cycle runs at 12 frames per second.
Looking back on this, the movement is still very nice and fluid, but the drawings themselves leave a lot to be desired. The head actually came out nicely on all the drawings. The perspective worked and it looked like it moved sensibly in space.
The rest of the figure, though, just looks like a complete mess. The arms and legs don't feel like they're connected to the torso at all, they look like flappy noodle swinging around on a 2d plane. The legs especially look like they don't keep their form as they move. They get shorter in the middle of the step and longer at the end of the step, when they should be bending more.
The line work also leaves a lot to be desired. This was the first piece where I actually thought of different line widths, although its barely noticeable. For the head, torso, and front limbs I used a gel pen, while for the back limbs I used a thinner ball point pen. I didn't really think about it too hard, though, since every drawing still feels flat.
But, hey, you gotta start somewhere.
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